Canadian Media's Visual Framing Of

“The Police and the Populace”: Canadian Media’s Visual Framing of the 2010 G20 Toronto Summit Aziz Douai University of Ontario Institute of Technology AbSTrACT The clash between the slick marketing slogans of the police and the democratic protections of political dissent was on full display throughout citizen protests during the 2010 G20 meetings in Toronto, Canada. In addition to the summit’s excessive costs and organiza - tional lapses, the eruption of violence and questionable police tactics dominated media cov - erage of the summit. This research investigates the media’s visual framing of the policing of the G20 Toronto summit through an analysis of 852 news images published in several print and online media outlets in Canada. The article examines how the “visual tone” of the images, news ideology, and the news medium affect the visual framing of the anti–corporate global - ization movement in communications research. KEywOrDS Visual communication; Frame analysis; Ideology; Globalization; New media rÉSUMÉ Le conflit entre les slogans mercatiques sophistiqués de la police et les garanties démocratiques de la dissidence politique a été dévoilé lors des affrontements violents entre la police et les protestants lors des réunions du G20 en 2010 à Toronto au Canada. En plus des coûts exorbitants et les faiblesses organisationnels, l’éruption de la violence accompagnée des tactiques policières qui ont été mises en question ont dominé la couverture médiatique durant le sommet. Cette étude examine le cadrage visuel du maintien de l’ordre et la sécurité par les médias au sommet du G20 à travers une analyse de 852 images d’actualité publiées dans plusieurs journaux ainsi que des médias électroniques au Canada. L’article étudie le « ton visuel » des images, idéologie des medias, et le moyen d’information médiatique affectant le cadrage visuel du mouvement d’opposition au mondialisme. MOTS CLÉS Communication visuelle; Analyse du cadrage; Idéologie; Mondialisation; Nouveaux médias Introduction ommunications media have long constituted a symbolic battleground on which Ccompeting social constituents struggle to “frame” and present coherent narratives (Entman, 1993; Gitlin, 1980), control the pictures in people’s minds (Lippmann, 1922), vie for greater “visibility” (Thompson, 2000), and lobby “public opinion” to their side of history. In this contentious battle over power in society, corporate images, pub - lic pronouncements and outreach, strategic communication, and public relations Aziz Douai is Assistant Professor of communication, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street N., Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4. Email: [email protected] . Canadian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (20 14) 175 -192 ©20 14 Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation 176 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 39 (2) have led the way. while strategic communication refers to “the strategic application of communication and how an organization functions as a social actor to advance its mission,” (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007, p. 7) corpo - rations have long cultivated their brands and passed themselves to the public as so - cially responsible corporate citizens. Non-governmental organizations employ strategic communication tools to attract public support for their myriad environmen - tal, social, or political causes. Governments around the globe are positioning them - selves as corporate enterprises that “sell” policies to the larger public (Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002). Like other state organizations, police services are no different in try - ing to manage their public image carefully and glean public support from which they draw their legitimacy in liberal democracies (Mawby, 2002). For instance, the Toronto Police Service’s slogan, “To Serve and Protect,” has the unmistakable ring of a slick marketing slogan. For the public at least, the slogan encapsulates the mission of the police, which casts it in peaceful-sounding terms, “To Serve.” On the other side of the spectrum, the anti–corporate globalization movement has both appropriated and subverted these forms of “self-mass communication” to fight for an equitable world (Juris, 2005; Kahn & Kellner, 2004). The clash between the police department’s slick marketing slogans and the dem - ocratic protections of political dissent was on full display throughout the violent con - frontations and the policing of citizen protests during the 2010 G20 meetings in Toronto, Canada. The massive security operation of the G20 summit became the largest in Canadian history, involving local and provincial police, the rCMP, and the military (Monaghan & walby, 2012). In addition to the unprecedented disruption of normal life in the city, the summit’s excessive costs and organizational lapses, the erup - tion of violence and questionable police tactics eclipsed media coverage of other sum - mit issues. News images of burning police cruisers, threatening depictions of so-called black bloc protesters, and coverage of Toronto police rounding up potential suspects and incarcerating them in makeshift prisons overwhelmingly dominated media re - ports (Monaghan & walby, 2012). This article investigates the media’s visual framing of the policing of the 2010 G20 Toronto Summit through an analysis of 852 news im - ages published in mainstream print and online media outlets in Canada. Employing a visual framing analysis, the article analyzes how the visual “tone” of images, news organizations’ ideological leanings, and the news medium influence the visual frames of the anti–corporate globalization movement in the west. Covering the anti–corporate globalization movement Police and anti–corporate globalization protesters have waged their communications war since the late 1990s, attracting researchers’ attention to the raging battle of images. From the “battle of Seattle” to “the battle of Genoa,” existing research related to the anti-globalization movement during the world Trade Organization (wTO), G8, or G20 meetings has almost exclusively focused on the communicative styles and strategies of the dissenting populace (e.g., Juris, 2005; Kahn & Kellner, 2004; wall, 2003), or the media and journalists’ reporting strategies and framing of dissenting protests (e.g., Hall & bettig, 2003; Jha, 2008), ignoring the state-apparatus and police forces’ communication tactics. For instance, wall (2003) used the participant-observation Douai “The Police and the Populace” 177 method to analyze and compare the communication tactics non-governmental organizations and the decentralized “street movement” groups employed during their 1999 protests against the wTO known as the “battle of Seattle.” wall (2003) concluded that the “street movement” groups employed a “radical frame,” unlike the institutional or “reformist frame” (p. 44) used by NGOs seeking to influence mainstream media. Juris (2005) critiqued the media-circulated images of wanton violence and destruction emanating from the anti–corporate globalization protests during the G8 summit in the Italian city of Genoa in 2001. He further argued that Genoa police successfully exploited images of protesters’ own “performative violence” (p. 414) to portray militants as a threat to the social and moral order. Despite different organizational covers, anti–corporate globalization protesters are united by their conviction that rich countries’ policies “enable the super rich and pow - erful to exploit workers, ignore human rights, squeeze third world countries, and de - stroy the environment—all in pursuit of profits” (Hall & bettig, 2003, p. 3). However, these issues never constitute the central “frames” in the presentation and coverage of the anti–corporate globalization movement by mainstream media (MSM). All too often, MSM’s portrayals marginalize demands of activists by promoting narratives of “law and order” (Juris, 2008). Media ownership structure and framing strategies have been blamed for the jaundiced media coverage of dissent. In The Whole World Is Watching , Gitlin (1980) examined how the anti–Vietnam war movement of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was marginalized and portrayed as a threat to the social and moral order of the United States. The mainstream media “framed” SDS members as terrorists and anarchists bent on destruction, leading to the fragmentation and ul - timate failure of SDS. Dominant and biased media frames largely result from concen - trated media ownership in the hands of few corporations, which use their media power to serve and perpetuate the interests of the dominant structure. As Herman and Chomsky (1988) argue, the media are organically embedded in the dominant power structure, essentially both belonging to the same elite, and as such are disinterested in presenting counter-hegemonic stories that may pose a threat to U.S. “national inter - ests.” In the “propaganda model,” Herman and Chomsky critique the mainstream media’s overwhelming reliance on “official” sources—instead of oppositional voices— and on advertising whose ideological biases constitute “filters” that lead to the deni - gration of political dissent. In contrast, the Internet has become a boon for dissenting social movements and activists seeking to circumvent MSM’s skewed gaze in both distributing and receiving alternative news. while the role of the Internet and new media in energizing social movements cannot be underestimated (Kidd, 2003), most studies focus on social movements’ use of the Internet as a “mobilization”

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